Transit Trekking: Explore, Engage, and Embrace the Journey!

By Maritza Lauriano Ortega; Edited by Kim Huntress Inskeep

June is Ride Transit Month! Ride Transit Month celebrates the power of public transportation to connect communities, reduce congestion, and improve the quality of life for all. This is the time to celebrate public transportation and encourage individuals to experience the joy and convenience of this sustainable mode of transportation.

Move Redmond recently met with Kim Huntress Inskeep, a Seattle-based transportation advocate and founder of Transit Trekker. Huntress Inskeep is creating The Transit Trekker Manual aims to help nondrivers and people who want to drive less have easier access to the outdoors while simultaneously advocating to expand rural and regional transit service.

Over the last decade, Huntress Inskeep has increasingly focused her marketing, communications, & journalism background toward transportation advocacy. Most recently, that work has included contributions to the Disability Mobility Initiative’s Transportation Access for Everyone Story Map and corresponding White Paper  and Week Without Driving Campaign. Working on the storymap taught Huntress Inskeep just how much inadequate infrastructure and transit service compromises mobility for people who live in rural communities and smaller cities — and that she was far from alone in craving easier access to recreation

As a nondriver herself, she had long been planning her own car-free cycling tours with assists from transit, but it wasn’t until the beginning of the pandemic that she finally became impatient with limiting her trips to cycling. She was already a bit of a resource to her friends for these kinds of trips and as she expanded her personal repertoire to include transit-assisted hiking and backpacking, her friend and colleague Anna Zivarts from the Disability Mobility Initiative, encouraged her to just go ahead and write a book.

Through countless hours of on-the-ground research Huntress Inskeep is working to finish The Transit Trekker Manual, which is filled with trip guides informed by her trip scouting, as well as general tips for using transit to access recreation.“The reality is that even in bigger cities like Seattle we don’t have the kind of transit system that makes this as easy as it should be. So I want to give people as much information as possible to reduce that barrier and [provide] those little details that will make it a lot easier. Which days of the week is this trip easier to do? Is the trip kid friendly? Can you bring your dog with you? And that sort of context that apps can’t always offer.”

Though Huntress Inskeep wants to increase transit access to trails and recreational areas, she brings a critical piece of advocacy in increasing transit services to rural communities. “I’m working to make sure my readers embrace the idea that we need to expand transit to entire communities, not just for recreation. Especially smaller, more rural communities who have a pretty big percentage of non-drivers who don’t have access to the kind of mobility that they need — and deserve! —  to participate in everyday things that a lot of us take for granted.” Huntress Inskeep believes that we shouldn’t place recreation over community needs but rather prioritize mobility for communities. “The natural outcome should be that it becomes easier to access recreational areas surrounding those rural communities, and help policymakers understand the full value of funding really robust transit in all of our communities.”

One of the many challenges she has faced in creating Transit Trekker is the inclusion of locations beyond the Seattle Metro and Western Washington areas, where higher populations have driven more frequent transit service. In her view, less-populated communities also deserve to have access to recreation through transit.  “I want to make sure to include the whole state, even where current transit-accessible recreation may be especially thin.” 

Accessing trails and recreational areas should be just one outcome of expanding transit to rural communities. This transit month, take the time to take advantage of our transit system to enjoy the outdoors and write a review of your experience! Check out these amazing resources to help you get started: 

You can sign up to get notified as soon The Transit Trekker Manual is available on Transittrekker.com!